The EnGenius Dual Band Concurrent AP Router (ESR7750) is a dual-band router and access point that offers decent hardware features but only humdrum performance. Dual CPUs and wireless access control are impressive, but the routers interface seems dated—and so does its performance. What would have been a powerful router two or three years ago isn’t so impressive against modern dual-band heavyweights from the likes of Netgear, Cisco/Linksys and Belkin. Still, for under 100 dollars, the Engenius ESR7750 is a good deal for home networks without huge throughput demands.

SpecsThe EnGenius ESR7750 features Ralink chipsets. Internal antennas are embedded on the left and right ends of the router. In fact, with the test unit shipped to me, was a note stating that optimal performance is attained by standing the router on the front end—although I did not see performance improvement when testing it that position versus placing it flat on its bottom.

This simultaneous dual-band router has an LED in top of its housing for viewing WPS, power, client connectivity, and radio statuses. The power LED is counterintuitively orange-red by default. I find it annoying when red or orange indicators are used on networking equipment for anything other than errors or problems. Also, there is no Gigabit Ethernet for the LAN ports. This would be annoying for any router, but it’s especially so in a dual-band router, which is more likely to be purchased by users with more demanding networking needs, including fast wired connections.

SetupThe router ships with a Smart Wizard CD that gives detailed step-by-step instructions on how to configure the machine used to set up the router and how to connect the cables. One feature of note is the inclusion of security setup during initial install—something lacking in Engenius' otherwise very good, ESR9855G single-band router. I like security configuration bundled in with the initial install process, because too many neglect to add security to routers after setup. Present security levels range from "Lowest," for none to "Highest," which is WPA2. Setup also walks users through accepting or changing the default SSID and passphrase (if security is enabled).

These setup steps are performed for both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. An on-screen click to reboot and apply settings is required—many newer routers can accept changes without needing a reboot, though.

Features and InterfaceThe EnGenius ESR7750 does not have the same slick interface as EnGenius' ESR9885G gaming router. The ESR7750‘s dated interface reminds me of router software from years ago. The interface however, does give access to some robust features, just as the gaming router’s did. For instance, you can enable the firewall and power saving capabilities to work on a schedule. There's also a monitor to display the bandwidth of both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The problem with the monitor though, is that the display refreshes every five seconds, making it impossible to get a lengthy look at the bandwidth charts. Unfortunately, I also found no way to control that refresh rate.

The EnGenius ESR7750 can perform all the conventional tasks of competitors like NAT, port forwarding, QoS, UPnP, and static routing in lieu of NAT. URL blocking works well: when I entered "craiglist" as a keyword and no clients on my network could get to the craigslist site. Blocking happened immediately without having to restart browsers and lifting the block happened just as quick. URL blocking is not an effective overall parental control strategy, however, because you have to manually enter specific URLs and keywords. Trying to manually enter all the bad things on the Internet the kiddies might stumble across would be foolhardy. Still, it can be handy for blocking selected URLs, as needed. There are routers out there with specific parental controls such as Netgear's N750 which uses the Live Parental Controls cloud service from OpenDNS.

There are some other useful options with this router, although they aren't so unique as to not be found on other competing routers. For example, if you have a problem running an Internet app from behind NAT, the ESR7750 allows creating virtual DMZ hosts. Also the firewall has native protection against DDoS attacks—a feature you’d want if you are hosting your own web server.

As I navigated through the interface I discovered you can enable wireless access control based on Mac addresses and you can also apply connection control policies on each SSID.

There are quite a few advanced features with this router. It could work for a smaller business because of its AP functionality and access control policies. Yet, I did have some problems applying settings when connected wirelessly. At some points after applying a setting, the interface just hung. I did not have the same issue applying settings via a wired connection to the router.

PerformanceThe EnGenius ESR7750 is a 2x2 antenna router. Its performance, is of course, not a match for the newer 3x3 routers now on the networking scene. Consider, though, that there are not many wireless adapters in the client devices we use like tablets and laptops, that are compatible with the faster 3x3 routers. So for most client devices except the latest on the market, it's a sufficient router, but the 3x3 routers with compatible adapters have faster throughput.

As shown in the chart below, newer routers have throughput rates in the triple digits. Because of the ESR7750's hardware it's fairer to compare its throughout to other routers with similar hardware specs such as Buffalo's AirStation Nfiniti and Cisco Linksys' WRT400N (all highlighted in yellow):

There is barely any performance difference between the three highlighted. For a small home or business network, the ESR7750 would be fine, as long as there aren’t any high-throughput demands like video conferencing or streaming high-definition video.

A Decent Performing, Full Featured VideoEnGenius' ESR7750 is a solid three-star router. It doesn't wow with performance, because of its hardware specs, but it can perform fine as an AP or router for a smaller network without demanding throughput needs. It's available for under $100, which is a good price for a dual-band. It's certainly not an innovative offering, but for simple networks that may want more advanced features, it's not a bad bet. Still, for not much more, you can pick up our Editors’ Choice dual-band router, the Netgear N750 and get more than twice the throughput wirelessly, as well as fast wired connections via four Gigabit Ethernet ports.